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  • Growth chart studies of the human cerebellum, which is increasingly recognized as pivotal for cognitive development, are rare. Gaiser and colleagues utilized population-level neuroimaging to unveil cerebellar growth charts from childhood to adolescence, offering insights into brain development.

    • Zi-Xuan Zhou
    • Xi-Nian Zuo
    CommentOpen Access
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a crucial diagnostic tool within modern healthcare, yet its availability remains largely confined to high-income nations. The imperative to extend MRI accessibility to lower-income countries aligns with the pursuit of universal health coverage, a key target of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3. In an interview with Nature Communications, three scientists dedicated to advancing MRI accessibility in Africa share their insights. These experts include Dr Udunna Anazodo (Assistant Professor at McGill University, Canada and Scientific Director, Medical Artificial Intelligence (MAI) Lab, Lagos, Nigeria), Dr Johnes Obungoloch (Lecturer at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda) and Dr Ugumba Kwikima (Neuroradiologist, Lugalo General Military Hospital, Tanzania). Our discussion considers the current MRI landscape across African countries and the associated challenges and opportunities. We also cover technological innovations making a difference, such as low field MRI, alongside the role of advocacy initiatives in bolstering accessibility. We finally look ahead to the future of MRI in Africa.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • I argue that a surface emitting laser that remains single mode irrespective of its size, a scale-invariant laser, should of necessity also waste light at the edge. This is a fundamental departure from the Schawlow-Townes two-mirror strategy that keeps light away from mirrors and edges to preserve gain and minimize loss. The strategy was implemented in the recent discovery of the Berkeley Surface Emitting Laser (BerkSEL).

    • Boubacar Kanté
    CommentOpen Access
  • Climate change and plastic pollution are interconnected global challenges. Rising temperatures and moisture alter plastic characteristics, contributing to waste, microplastic generation, and release of hazardous substances. Urgent attention is essential to comprehend and address these climate-driven effects and their consequences.

    • Xin-Feng Wei
    • Wei Yang
    • Mikael S. Hedenqvist
    CommentOpen Access
  • To build pathways to constructive and engaging peer review for the next generation of scientists, we invite all our reviewers to co-review with an Early Career Researcher in their group and let us know. We will ensure ECRs are recognised for their contribution.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • Millions of skeletal remains from South Asia were exported in red markets (the underground economy of human tissues/organs) to educational institutions globally for over a century. It is time to recognize the personhood of the people who were systematically made into anatomical objects and acknowledge the scientific racism in creating and continuing to use them.

    • Sabrina C. Agarwal
    CommentOpen Access
  • Contact between organelles such as the mitochondria (Mito) and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is crucial to coordinate vital cellular homeostatic processes. Here we discuss recent work showing that Mito-ER proximity is regulated by heterotypic complexes between the F-actin polymerizing protein Diaphanous-1) and the mitochondrial dynamics protein Mitofusin 2, which confers increased susceptibility to ischemia/reperfusion injury.

    • Lorrie A. Kirshenbaum
    • Rimpy Dhingra
    • Sergio Lavandero
    CommentOpen Access
  • Selecting omic biomarkers using both their effect size and their differential status significance (i.e., selecting the “volcano-plot outer spray”) has long been equally biologically relevant and statistically troublesome. However, recent proposals are paving the way to resolving this dilemma.

    • Thomas Burger
    CommentOpen Access
  • Professor Sabine Oertelt-Prigione has been working in the field of sex and gender-sensitive research for the last 15 years. Her current work is focused on trying to understand how sex and gender-sensitive medicine can be successfully implemented in research and practice as well as methods to investigate gender in medical research. Dr. Brandon Turner is a resident physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has conducted and is involved in numerous studies looking to evaluate race and ethnicity reporting and representation in clinical trials. In this interview for Nature Communications, Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, and Brandon Turner share their knowledge about the biases that can occur in clinical trials and how they can be minimized.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, with over 25% of these occurring in the African region. Multi-drug resistant strains which do not respond to first-line antibiotics continue to emerge, putting at risk numerous public health strategies which aim to reduce incidence and mortality. Here, we speak with Professor Valerie Mizrahi, world-leading researcher and former director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town, regarding the tuberculosis burden in South Africa. We discuss the challenges faced by researchers, the lessons that need to be learnt and current innovations to better understand the overall response required to accelerate progress.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Africa is undergoing a demographic transition1 that has led to significant reductions in the number of individuals living in extreme poverty, and to positive shifts in related health outcomes, across its diverse populations2. Building on these successes requires a consideration of intersecting factors that impact health metrics, which is the focus of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals3. To support researchers in their efforts towards reaching these goals, Nature Communications, Communications Medicine and Scientific Reports invite submissions of papers that advance our understanding of all aspects of health in Africa.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • The emergence of high-entropy materials has inspired the exploration of novel materials in diverse technologies. In electrochemical energy storage, high-entropy design has shown advantageous impacts on battery materials such as suppressing undesired short-range order, frustrating energy landscape, decreasing volumetric change and reducing the reliance on critical metals. This comment addresses the definition and potential improper use of the term “high entropy” in the context of battery materials design, highlights the unique properties of high-entropy materials in battery applications, and outlines the remaining challenges in the synthesis, characterization, and computational modeling of high-entropy battery materials.

    • Bin Ouyang
    • Yan Zeng
    CommentOpen Access
  • Combining ocean predictions with physiological understanding yields the ability to forecast habitat multiple years into the future for a wide variety of marine organisms. However, several challenges remain before we see the regular production and use of marine habitat forecasts.

    • Mark R. Payne
    CommentOpen Access
  • Innovative pharmacogenomic approaches (genetic variation related to medication response) are needed to reduce disease and disparities in Indigenous communities. We support community-based pharmacogenomics research, inclusive of Indigenous values and priorities, to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples.

    • Katrina G. Claw
    • Casey R. Dorr
    • Erica L. Woodahl
    CommentOpen Access
  • Synthetic optical materials have been recently employed as a powerful platform for the emulation of topological phenomena in wave physics. Topological phases offer exciting opportunities, not only for fundamental physics demonstrations, but also for practical technologies. Yet, their impact has so far been primarily limited to their claimed enhanced robustness. Here, we clarify the role of robustness in topological photonic systems, and we discuss how topological photonics may offer a wider range of important opportunities in science and for practical technologies, discussing emergent and exciting research directions.

    • Alexander B. Khanikaev
    • Andrea Alù
    CommentOpen Access
  • The African continent demonstrated decisive leadership throughout its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging lessons learned from previous outbreaks and acting quickly to limit the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We propose a framework to build on these successes that calls for greater collaboration between African leaders, and greater inclusion of African voices in the global health ecosystem.

    • Nicaise Ndembi
    • Aggrey Aluso
    • Jean Kaseya
    CommentOpen Access
  • While the research community continues to develop novel proposals for intrinsic biocontainment of genetically engineered organisms, translation to real-world deployment faces several challenges.

    • Dalton R. George
    • Mark Danciu
    • Emma K. Frow
    CommentOpen Access
  • Orphan crops hold the potential to diversify our food systems. Considering their unique characteristics, our deep understanding of major crops, and the availability of modern genomic tools, taking a different research path from what major crops have gone through could accelerate the genetic improvement of orphan crops.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • Underutilised crops or orphan crops are important for diversifying our food systems towards food and nutrition security. Here, the authors discuss how the development of underutilised crop genomic resource should align with their breeding and capacity building strategies, and leverage advances made in major crops.

    • Oluwaseyi Shorinola
    • Rose Marks
    • Mark A. Chapman
    CommentOpen Access
  • On the 12th of April 2010, Nature Communications published its first editorial and primary research articles. The topics of these first 11 papers represented the multidisciplinary nature of the journal: from DNA damage to optics alongside material science to energy and including polymer chemistry. We have spoken with the corresponding authors of some of these very first papers and asked them about their experience of publishing in this then new journal and how they see Nature Communications now.

    Q&AOpen Access